It's a great thing for St. Cloud area students to perform an original choral piece. Even greater that they are going overseas. And better yet, an oratorio about the Holocaust delivered at the site of a Nazi death camp.

But the title of the piece, From anti-Semitic hotbed to healing: St. Cloud area students to perform oratorio at Nazi death camps once again has some Twin Cities writer who probably spends NO TIME in St. Cloud using the swastika story to paint an entire town as a hotbed when the one student who admitted to drawing a swastika comes from a St. Paul suburb. Yet we had to be open and pro-active, and we continue to get this kind of press. Cui bono? Those who use the claims of "systemic racism" to further their urban racial political agenda.

Labels: higher education, politics, SCSU

This week many campuses are seeing students protesting their inability to carry a concealed weapon while at school. The protests consists of students going about their business while wearing an empty holster (and one that is clearly seen as being empty.) The group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus have organized themselves for a second such protest (the first occurred last October.)

The two purposes of an Empty Holster Protest are:

1. To represent to the public that students, faculty, and guests on college campuses are left defenseless or, metaphorically, with empty holsters.

2. To start a dialogue with students and faculty members who may not know the facts of the issue.

Last Friday, the campus communications office sent out a notice telling us that this was happening here, explaining the protest with the link I used at the top and this:

Participants will be wearing t-shirts and EMPTY holsters and handing out flyers. The national organization sponsoring the protest has made it clear that students are NOT to carry anything inside the holsters. Students will not carry signs or banners and have made a commitment to avoiding any disruptive behavior. Behavior outside the promised parameters may be reported to Public Safety...

I must say that last sentence worried me. I have no recollection of any notice on our campus letting people know to report "behavior outside the promised parameters". Those parameters are determined by the letter that the group is having all the campus chapters use. In short, they can wear the empty holsters and t-shirts (which are a little too expensive, so the students here have said they would eschew them) and can speak to people who ask about the holsters, but they would not approach any groups or hand out literature.

To its credit, the administration issued a statement Monday morning that clarified that the students' speech rights were to be respected, from President Earl Potter under an email titled "Peaceful Protest This Week":

I recognize that this protest comes at a time when our sensitivities to safety on campus have been heightened by recent events. Nevertheless, I need to remind us all that while individuals in a university community may disagree with the opinions expressed by the protesters, we have the responsibility to be tolerant of their views and must not retaliate against advocates for these views. We must remember that these students have the first amendment right to free speech and the right to protest within university guidelines which prohibit disruption or interference with classes or other university business.

The flow of campus email, which over the weekend had faculty and staff looking for ways to stop the protest turned to decrying the students' insistence that they be allowed to advocate for guns, because guns are bad, or that guns are only desired by people who wish to do us harm. (Of course, articles like Arthur Brooks' in last Saturday's WSJ fall on deaf ears. Mitch, by the way, has an excellent commentary on that today.)

Some of the early comments included (direct quotes):

• how are we to know if the empty holster toting student’s intention is for safety or for terror?
• I would not feel safe having students walk into a classroom with holsters
• I find this disturbing at the very least. Brandishing what "appears to be a weapon" can constitute fifth degree assault

These were before the President's letter, and all were thinking that somehow it could and should be stopped. Afterwards, the comments turned to:

• It is unfortunate that people believe simple slogans like "Guns don't' kill people--People do" to answer complex questions about guns, freedom, and safety!
• the fact that there are people who are lobbying for the right to bring guns to a university campus -- into classrooms and university buildings, no less -- fills me with extreme terror.
• Nothing about these arguments so far even acknowledges that the tragedies at Virginia tech, Recori, columbine, and numerous others ever happened.
• I know that the opposition would say that "dangerous criminals and armed killers" would still be armed, but I like the odds better if fewer students are "carrying"--especially those young people whose good judgment is not yet in full blossom.
• I can just see it now: a grading complaint. Both the professor and the student put their guns on the table, and then begin the conversation.
  
• I accept the rights of the holster wearers to illustrate their opinions, but I hope our elected officials have the good sense to not change the laws to their liking. I’d be more comfortable if the holstered protestors also wore their marksmanship merit badges, military sharpshooter rankings, or any other evidence of requisite skill and composure.

I did not participate much in this discussion, as I realized how little I knew, but one would have to say that if the purpose of an Empty Holster Protest was to start a dialogue, they certainly got that. The question is, what happens after starting it?

Through students I knew on campus I was able to speak with two participants in this protest, Terrance McCloskey and Bill Jacobson. They agreed to meet me and another faculty member interested in First Amendment issues, Kathy Uradnik, in my office. McCloskey identified himself as a licensed firearms instructor, though so far he has taught only one class. Both came wearing empty holsters.
I placed the holster for my Treo alongside theirs; I then put my Treo in Bill's holster. It was a little small for the holster, but it was snug. As you can see from the picture, they are not obvious to anyone not looking closely, and any claim that they would be disruptive to the classroom seems a real stretch to me.

SCCC has advocated that each student group provide notification to the campus they are participating in the event. The SCSU students -- which they reported numbered "around 30" and included "a majority of the Student Government Association body" -- sent notices to Public Safety and to the student organizations group. They received a call about their "proposed" protest from administrative vice president Steve Ludwig, to whom they reported again that the holsters would be empty. They told me Ludwig expressed concern for negative emotional reactions to the holsters, which given the quotes above from faculty would seem well-founded. They also reported that they had a few students participate in the October protest as a test run. One student at that time had grabbed the holster Jacobson was wearing, "to check to see if it was empty." Other than that, there had been no reaction.

I asked if there was more reaction this time. Jacobson said that he had six people talk to him in the last two hours. McCloskey said he had not gotten any reactions today. They had had reported to them that one Public Safety sergeant had told a watch that they should be on the lookout and write up reports if any of the protesters got out of line, and one report was that a faculty member, well known to us, had started to approach them to talk but then backed away. Protesters are instructed not to approach anyone; I asked if they had literature to hand out if they were asked, but McCloskey replied that they had no money to print flyers.

We spent time reviewing other complaints and reactions. It is worth reminding people that the age at which one could get a permit is 21, so that some of the concerns of guns in the hands of "young people whose good judgment is not yet in full blossom" has been contemplated by the law already. We discussed restrictions on less-than-lethal alternatives like TASERs and pepper spray. Students can't carry TASERs either, Jacobson said, and the campus' student handbook extends the gun ban to "any other weapon."

Longtime readers of this blog know I do not own a gun. I haven't fired one since getting my rifle merit badge in Boy Scouts. I tried a handgun at that time, but not since. A couple of years ago Littlest wanted to learn about shooting a rifle, so we sent her to the classes and I went and watched her field class. She was 11. She was excited to try this, but she also was very respectful of a gun that day.

I share the fear many of my colleagues have of a handgun insofar as I am ignorant of their use. My conversation with McCloskey and Jacobson had one very strong impact on me: I was more aware afterwards of how little I know. I have no way of knowing, for example, how much a person trained to carry a concealed weapon would know about protecting the weapon from an attacker, the poise they have in dealing with intruders, the background checks one gets to be sure one is not a loony. I'm hopeful of changing that soon, to take advantage of one of my several invitations to learn how to handle and use a handgun. Not necessarily because I want a permit to conceal and carry -- how would I know if I wanted one? -- but in order to reduce my ignorance.

Which is why I got into this business anyway. Teaching in a university is supposed to put one in the ignorance reduction business. I suggest this as an antidote to the fear that the faculty above expressed: Yes, we should learn about campus safety and what we can do to increase it, but we should also overcome the fear that is borne of our ignorance about guns. We should practice what we teach.

Labels: free speech, guns, higher education, SCSU

MN Chair in Real Estate Steve Mooney sent me a copy of his report along with the press release that surveys graduates of his program to determine conditions in the real estate industry as discussed earlier. The survey was of 141 graduates, with 42 of them having three or fewer years of experience. Here are a few interesting tables:

Table 1 – How Do You Rate the Market?

2005						2007
	Very Good	Good	Average	Poor			Very Good	Good	Average	Poor
Appraisal	14%	66%	21%	0		Appraisal	0	17%	57%	27%
Development	38%	38%	23%	0		Development	14%	57%	14%	14%
Property Management	29%	57%	10%	0		Property Management	0	38%	54%	8%
Mortgage Banker	3%	84%	13%	0		Mortgage Banker	0	12%	35%	53%
Broker	13%	80%	7%	0		Broker	0	26%	41%	33%
Assessor	7%	57%	36%	0		Assessor	0	0	73%	27%
Res-All	11%	63%	25%	0		Res-All	0	12%	37%	51%
Comm-All	19%	71%	10%	0		Comm-All	1%	23%	52%	21%

That is as telling about the movement in the market as anything we can publish. In particular for mortgage bankers, the market is grim. When asked whether the respondents see themselves in the same business five years from now, here are the percentages who said "yes".

Table 2

	2005	2007
Appraisal	93%	90%
Developer	100%	100%
Prop Mgt	76%	88%
Mortgage Banker	91%	59%
Broker	100%	92%
Assessor	100%	86%

29% of respondents see the market improving in the next 1-3 years and 13% think it will get worse. (The rest believed it would "stabilize" -- at what level? I don't know.)

Labels: economics, housing, SCSU

The announcement of Jim Bullard to lead the St. Louis Federal Reserve is a happy point for us at SCSU. He was a double major in economics and in quantitative methods and information systems from us in 1984. I remember him coming during his grad school years to SCSU to give a paper to our department -- he graduated just before I came to St. Cloud -- and I thought his research then was already outstanding. His resume is one piece of evidence I am a decent judge of talent.

He replaces longtime president William Poole, who is retiring after ten years. The St. Louis Fed has a reputation for a high-quality research program and an advocacy of price stability extending back to the 1960s. It's a big task Jim faces, and he recognizes.

As the Eighth District charts its course for the future, I plan to focus on a few key areas by building upon the St. Louis Bank's strong economic research tradition; continuing to provide world-class, relevant economic information and education; enhancing the Bank's outreach to industry and university economics programs; and gathering and disseminating information used for economic policy decisions.

Good luck and congratulations from St. Cloud!

Labels: economics, SCSU

From our administration:

For Christians, Good Friday is a significant day of religious meaning. Tomorrow is Good Friday, but it is also a normal day of classes and open offices. There will be students, faculty and staff who are using appropriate means to observe their faiths. As we are a community that supports pluralism and diversity, please respect the religious observance of those who celebrate the conclusion of Holy Week.

I don't know; it feels a bit contrived, particularly the "using appropriate means". What would constitute inappropriate means, and what should be the campus' reaction to that? And if there are inappropriate means for observing Good Friday, are there also ones for observing religious holidays of other religions? I don't know, like I said. It is well-intentioned, I'm sure. I just don't know that this is a good sign. I would not like an administrator deciding which of my Good Friday traditions are appropriate.

Meanwhile, the protest I wrote about yesterday appears to have started a conversation on campus; most people seemed to think it was simply no big deal. I did put the question of a public expression area to them on our campus discussion list -- so far, no discussion. That is assuredly NOT a good sign.

Labels: SCSU

It being after all the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and it being that I work on a college campus, I expected to see some campus protesters today. And sure enough they were there, marching about inside my building. "What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!" It was that typical nostalgia for the Sixties that the modern student learns (some dare call it "critical thinking".) Students and faculty alike mostly were annoyed by the loud chanting, which interrupted many classes. There were calls made to campus security, but I never saw an officer come over to our building. The students left within fifteen minutes at any rate.

As someone observed, we have on our campus public expression zones. When the fire-and-brimstone preacher comes to campus, he's required to stand in the zone. Nobody seems to want to hold these students to that standard. Why?

Labels: free speech, SCSU

Not affiliated with the Scholars, but Matt Barton, who teaches ENGL 432/532, Writing on the Web, has students writing a political blog. Greetings to Mr. Barton's students!

Labels: blogging, SCSU

The city of St. Cloud has decided no crime was committed by the student who had admitted to drawing a swastika on a chalkboard in a dorm (as discussed on this blog here.)

The swastika, which the student admitted drawing to “see if it would attract media attention,” is offensive but not illegal, according to a memorandum written by Assistant City Attorney Matthew Staehling. The student was identified in Staehling’s memo as an 18-year-old freshman.

The student drew the 3-inch by 3-inch swastika on a chalkboard inside Stearns Hall. Because the swastika was easily erased and didn’t require paint to conceal and didn’t cause any permanent damage to property, the incident was not criminal damage to property, Staehling wrote. The student denied any involvement in any of the other numerous acts of graffiti on campus that have been reported in the last three months.

The swastika is protected speech under the First Amendment, Staehling wrote, because the symbol doesn’t amount to “fighting words” that would be subject to a charge of disorderly conduct.

The swastika, Staehling wrote, “is protected as symbolic speech just as other offensive forms of speech are protected.”

Other uses of the swastika on campus could constitute a crime, he wrote, including the images that have had to be painted over or caused other damage to property.

The newspaper declined to publish the name of the student, but it is in the AP wire service story picked up by many other newspapers (based on the WJON reporting.) I will not repost the name here, but the link takes you to a name that would not call up an image of a rural white kid upset with diversity education. (A student is a freshman, and last year a student with that name wrestled for a Twin Cities-area high school. I assume my curious readers know Google, so finding the name and other details reported here will not be seen as private.)

City Attorney Jan Peterson was reported in the WJON piece to have said that "other recent swastika cases could be prosecuted as criminal if they meet the vandalism or "fighting words" standards." These have been the standards I have argued for from the very start. If we catch the people responsible for the "Student Cultural Center" (Multicultural Student Services, I think?) vandalism might meet that standard. The rest? We have graffiti that could be classified as vandalism or not, plus the so-far unsolved and unconfirmed report by a student of first being spat upon and then confronted with a salute that was described as one used by Nazis.

Because charges were not filed, it's unlikely the most severe penalties will be placed on the student according to the AP report. The Code of Conduct will be used, and a chalkboard swastika has to be found on this list of prohibited conducts for sanctions to apply.

Labels: SCSU

We apparently have a small number of people — perhaps students — who are behaving badly and engaging in behavior that is immature and silly, heinous and hateful, or somewhere in between. But the vast majority of our 16,900 students and our faculty and staff are decent people who come here to work or study hard and treat each other with respect. They do what people on any campus do — go to class, socialize, teach and learn.

That's our President Potter yesterday discussing the Graffiti Game at SCSU, and it's a paragraph I absolutely agree with. I also note with approval that, again, he has refrained from the phrase "hate crime", choosing instead "bias-motivated incidents" and "expressions of hate". The acts "in some cases ha[ve] been criminal activity." I still don't know that someone who has behaved immaturely or silly has expressed hate or is motivate by violence, but it's a step in the right direction.

I think, however, that the essay then takes a wrong turn. Focusing on whether the incidents are harming minority enrollment seems to me to be making the wrong argument. We have fared quite well in enrollments generally because a softening economy reduces the opportunity cost of education so that people choose to attend universities. If our enrollment had gone down, would that really have told us anything? Would the campus' reaction have been any different?

I don't think so. I think the university is simply managing its image and those paragraphs come a little too close to sounding like pandering. And to do so they made a deliberate choice:

As a community, in consultation with faculty, staff and student leaders, we have chosen to express our responses to these challenges openly and just as in-your-face as the people who have scrawled swastikas on walls where students reside and engage in activities. We’ve posted safety alerts and are working closely with St. Cloud police in investigating what in some cases has been criminal activity.

For that we have drawn attention to our campus — some of it unpleasant. We will continue to do so because, while every campus and every community grapples with these same issues, we choose to bring them out into the open and unite against the hate they represent.

Context, however, matters, as we'll see below.

When I was a junior high student I was fascinated with war. One of the ways I expressed that fascination was to draw pictures of dogfights of aircraft. I'm quite sure I put swastikas on the tail of a Messerschmitt Bf109 or a Stuka. (Warning: Clicking those links leads you to photos of aircraft sporting swastikas.) If one were teaching WW2 history here at SCSU, would it be a problem to show these photos in the classroom? I loved looking at books of aircraft in flight and combat; I had many of the Ballantine series of books on World War 2 on my shelves. Had I taken, say, the one for the Me-109 (with a full side view of the aircraft on its cover), and had it in my dorm room, would this have been a problem if, say, I was reading it in a student dorm lounge?

Suppose a student in his or her dorm who loves Mel Brooks is watching "The Producers". He leaves the door open for friends. When the dancing swastika comes on stage during "Springtime for Hitler", if a student should pass by the doorway and is offended, is the student watching the movie expressing hate? Is this a "bias-motivated incident" or an "expression of hate"?

Now instead he puts on his dorm door a poster for the movie, say, the last of the three here. (Warning: swastika on that link) Code of conduct violation? He instead puts it on the announcement board on his dorm floor for the purpose of inviting dormmates to his room for movie and popcorn. Violation?

Suppose he sketches it instead, including the swastika? Crime?

Silly and immature, perhaps. Insensitive, well, possibly. But hardly worth an effort like we've had here, hardly something for which "resistance is required." We really aren't the only campus that deals with these issues this way (take a look, for example, at Grinnell College) yet we seem also to be headed into the area of insisting on certain campus reactions as being acceptable and others not. What we really need is a discussion of where that line is, where freedom of inquiry abuts the desire of many on campus to call these swastikas disgusting. As long as the response to speech is itself speech, all well and good. But prosecuting speech is a dangerous place for a university to go; thinking through my Producers in the dorm story is a way to think about what lines are you ready to draw? Such a discussion would also have helped faculty and students understand the debate over, say, posting the cartoons of Mohammad at Century College.

The problem with President Potter's article is that it gets us no closer to understanding where that line is. There's no discussion of where free speech ends and expressions of hate begins, either in his own view or in the view of the courts (where I think the line is further in favor of free speech.) That was the better than best paragraph missing from President Potter's article and a for-now missed opportunity; I hope sometime we get to hear it.

-----

The following day (Monday), the campus paper headline reads "Whiteboard swastika vandal identified". I do not know whether drawing a swastika on a whiteboard is vandalism; who has the property right to the whiteboard would seem to be one question. You could argue it is, but that makes the swastika no different than, say, a Ron Paul sticker plastered on a whiteboard. The article says the student was identified by another student, responding to one of the many safety alerts on campus. President Potter spoke Thursday night to student government:

"This is a learning community and one of the things that's most important to us is that having identified someone who intentionally thought to hurt others through hateful expression that we not react with hate when others are identified," said President Potter on the subject.

I'm unclear on the meaning of that; I would assume that our students are intelligent enough to not seek to assault someone who draws a swastika on a whiteboard. If we are worried about this, again, why the "Resistance Required!" labels on our safety alerts?

Many have been questioning whether or not these are actual hate crimes that are being committed. President Potter said by legal definition they are in fact hate crimes. A hate crime does not require physical assault; it does require the intent to intimidate a specific individual.

"Whether it is a hate crime or a copy cat act to make fun of the administrations response it is still hurtful to the community," Said President Potter to finish discussion on the issue. "I would like student government to stand with me and the students that have been targeted and say 'we will not accept this.' It will take a leadership role to get the majority of the community to stand up for our core values for what is right."

Not every act has been a crime, as the Times article has noted, therefore not all the acts could possibly rise to a "hate crime". Some of these acts are "behavior that is immature and silly, heinous and hateful, or somewhere in between," in Potter's own words. I believe the administration knows this; perhaps the reporting here omitted something to indicate Potter drawing a more careful line between those things which are crimes and those which are free speech that a majority of the campus finds repugnant. Nor do we know at all whether the whiteboard vandal (if indeed it is vandalism) was targeting any "specific individual", which would meet Potter's definition of a hate crime. It's too soon to say why it was drawn or who was the intended audience.

I see nothing wrong with his asking the student government to help him "stand up for our core values." I'm just wondering whether "freedom of inquiry" is in the core?

Labels: higher education, SCSU

A male student has been identified as possibly drawing a swastika on a Stearns Hall bulletin board on SCSU's campus. The exact nature of the act of which the student has admitted (according to the article) is that "Shortly after 5:30 a.m. Monday, January 28, residence hall staff in Stearns Hall observed a swastika drawn on an information board posted outside a sixth floor student’s room." But he has admitted only for one case. While the police cannot yet establish if a crime was committed (we do not have an anti-swastika law like New York's) the campus is likely to move forward against the student:

St. Cloud State spokeswoman Marge Proell said the man has been linked only to the Stearns Hall incident.

In a statement issued Thursday to students and staff, St. Cloud State President Earl H. Potter III said the university will address the matter under the Student Code of Conduct.

As many as 19 such incidents have been reported to campus security since November. The university has issued eight safety alerts during that time related to the incidents.

The Student Code of Conduct calls the following a "prohibited conduct":

4. Intentionally, recklessly or negligently placing any person under mental duress or causing any person to be in fear of physical danger through verbal abuse, harassment (including repeated phone calls), sexual harassment, hazing, intimidation, threats or other conduct which threatens or endangers that person's emotional, mental or physical well-being.

The question is whether the drawing of a swastika can be reasonably seen as causing mental duress. In that sense, the repeated advertising of the graffiti and other activity may have created the expectation that a student will be protected from seeing the symbol. (I worry I might have just suggested the prosecution's strategy.) If they pursue this case, it will be one broadly watched among free speech advocates. The ACLU is already on the case:

Teresa Nelson, legal counsel for the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union, said the line between free speech and preventing a hostile environment on a public university campus isn't always clear.

...Nelson said it's tough to know at what point controlling acts such as the recent incidents becomes censorship of people expressing opinions.

The ACLU has an older FAQ on hate speech and free speech on campus. It's worth noting Ms. Nelson's qualification of the line as depending on our being "a public university campus." I read with interest an old post by David Bernstein in which the ACLU made a case in favor of four neo-Nazis wearing swastika lapel pins into a private restaurant and being arrested when they refused to either remove the pins or leave. In that case, the restaurant owner had a legitimate private property right to ask for the pins to be hidden in order to serve the patrons. But dorms are weird in that they're public university but a place where students might expect more privacy. As I'm not a lawyer, I'm not going to speculate on how that gets solved.

We will now wait to see if the graffiti stops. If it does, there will be naturally the suspicion that the student identified may be responsible for more than the one. But it is also possible that the student is a copycat, using the press hysteria and campus angst to call attention to himself, or perhaps to make himself a First Amendment martyr. We shall see.

Labels: higher education, SCSU

It was thought by most individuals on campus that quick, forceful action on the appearance of vandals on the campus would lead to eventually good press. What we get for our efforts instead is an AP reporter running a story that reaches as far as the L.A. Times titled "Racist Displays Persist at Minn. College." (The PioneerPress at least gives us a little more credit: "Swastikas, other displays undermine St. Cloud State's efforts.") The writer dredges up our past bout with an anti-Semitism lawsuit and wonders how a court-ordered settlement that includes a state-funded Jewish Studies program could not solve the perceived problems of the campus.

The writer, Patrick Condon, is an AP writer who usually covers the Minnesota Legislature and state politics, and his writing indicates a great unfamiliarity with the personalities of SCSU. He uncritically quotes our Buster Cooper as "retired faculty", who is once again peddling his letters discouraging minority students from attending here. All to assist Condon to perpetrate a stereotype of St. Cloud and this university:

That was before a frightening six-week stretch in November and December when vandals carved or scrawled more than a dozen swastikas and other racist images on campus walls, elevators and bathroom stalls.

The spate came as a setback to this central Minnesota university, which has spent more than $1 million, thousands of hours and untold energy in recent years trying to undo its reputation as hostile toward racial and ethnic minorities, an image so entrenched that some refer to the surrounding town as "White Cloud."

Frightened, mind you, by graffiti. So what did this "Voices of Resistance" (required!) get you, President Potter? And toward what end does Condon work when he first uses the "White Cloud" smear and then reminds us of the influx of Somali immigrants?

Nor does advertising help. We noted in 2002 that all our efforts to remedy the anti-Semitism case of the time only bought us bad press. I wonder if President Potter, or any other administrator, had read those posts or former President Saigo's letters and the lack of good press we received. Perhaps then this administration would know that appeasement never buys you any peace with the drive-by media.

Yesterday's St. Cloud Times included a column by local lawyer John Reep, which noted the folly of our campus' efforts and suggests a different course of action:

We should stop reporting minor vandalism as hate crime and reserve that designation for more serious events. If we don't report, we should be able to stay off the evening news in Minneapolis.

Too late for that.

We can't control other news outlets, but our local media should be more selective in covering these stories. The continued coverage of every minor event lends credibility to that event, and actually contributes to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that nobody wants.

Really, nobody wants this? Once again I ask, cui bono?

Labels: higher education, Media, SCSU

From our university email list over the weekend, another report on a "bias-motivated, hateful act" (not a "hate crime" this time) on our campus.

Shortly before 2:30 p.m. Thursday, January 24, 2008, University officials were alerted to the marking of a swastika and a partial swastika on an interior wall of a stairwell in Shoemaker Residence Hall.

Assuming we know the distinguishing features of a "partial swastika"... But what is really interesting is the next paragraph, which I reprint in the type used:

RESISTANCE REQUIRED!

All members of the SCSU community must respond to another hateful threat to our learning environment. Every voice of resistance is needed IMMEDIATELY. If you have seen or know anything about these acts or persons committing such acts please call Public Safety (320) 308-3333.

What "resistance"? It might be tempting to have fun with this in the sense of wearing berets and sounding like LeBeau on Hogan's Heroes, but the next word, "required", is ominous. Required by whom? What are the penalties for failing to meet this requirement? One faculty member on the campus, reacting to the comments on a letter at the St. Cloud Times this AM, suggests that this is why we need racial issues courses in the curriculum. But we already require nine "diversity credits" out of 120 needed for a bachelor's degree. If it turns out the perpetrators of this are in fact students, what's to be done? Increase the number to 12? 18? Sounds like the Racial Issues Instructor Full Employment Act of 2008.

The Resistance Required tag is inappropriate in a public safety announcement. It smacks of vigilantism. It smacks of thought control, that all of us must act from some centralized control. Once centralization happens, it becomes used by our academic left for infiltration of other forms of indoctrination. On the university's new site called "Voices of Resistance", which was to inform the campus about these incidents, we have advertising of faculty talks on Hurricane Katrina and Martin Luther King. Is it out of bounds for me to suggest that these faculty are using the incidents to further their own agendas? Is it too much to ask "cui bono?" from exhortations that "every voice of resistance is required immediately"?

Meanwhile, as of the time of this writing, I have not seen a campus safety alert on this:

A St. Cloud man was attacked and robbed by multiple suspects shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday.

The man was approached by seven to eight men while walking home from St. Cloud State University on Fifth Street South. One of the men struck him in the face, knocking him to the ground, according to police reports.

The other men began punching him while he was on the ground and one of the assailants took his laptop computer and brown book bag.

The victim escaped his attackers and contacted police, but was unable to give a description of the suspects. The victim was taken to St. Cloud Hospital and treated for injuries.

Nor has "resistance" been "required", nor has there been any calls for changes in the university curriculum like a self-defense course, let alone some consideration of allowing students concealed carry to protect themselves as they return home.

Ask again, cui bono?

Labels: higher education, SCSU

My colleague and friend Dick Andzenge has written a column for today's St. Cloud Times that takes dead-aim at the affront to free speech and educational excellence that has been the university's response to the swastikas. He politely refers to us as a unique institution, in ways that we might lead us to prefer to be more common:

First, I see a one-dimensional approach to diversity. When some people at St. Cloud State talk of prejudice, discrimination, insensitivity and related hostility, they assume that only white, Christian, heterosexual men are capable of these sentiments. To these people, diversity is the exclusive empowerment and increased opportunity for non-whites, non-Christians, non-males and non-heterosexuals.

To satisfy this approach, the university has accommodated a curriculum that differs from traditional Western academic curriculum.

Many students do not know much about Western concepts such as rationalism, enlightenment and the industrial revolution and their connections to modernity.

On the other hand, multiple courses are offered in democratic citizenship without a clear identification of its theoretical, historical, substantive content and academic value. Students are required to take sensitivity training courses, all of which focus largely on passive accommodation of protected groups.

Long time readers of SCSU Scholars are aware of the sensitivity training, of democratic citizenship and its descendants, of mandatory diversity training and the use of diversity in "strategic planning" to mean anything other than permitting students to hear fully the western canon. Will anyone admit this is a failure? No -- and Dick argues that someone should ask why.

The second approach I find unique at St. Cloud State is the focus on problem identification without acknowledgment of successes in dealing with those problems. Evaluating efforts to solve problems enables us to see which efforts work and which ones do not work. Complaints should be fully investigated, findings and actions taken by the university or the community made public.

A third unique issue at St. Cloud State is the tendency to allow dealing with complaints to become the major agenda of the university.

One would have expected that because the previous president introduced so many changes, the institution would be able to put those problems behind and allow the new president to focus on the real mission for the university.

Indeed, when current President Earl Potter arrived, I had hoped that there would be focus on academics; someone reported to me that in a meeting with local leaders this president wondered whether or not the university was in the education business or the diversity business. Perhaps others were worried about the answer he might find...

That these issues have surfaced at this moment suggests a persistent tendency to make sure that bigotry continues to be the university's main agenda.

The most recent incident, within a campus dormitory after students had left for semester break, might raise some question whether it is a group of jackals from off-campus or -- could it be? -- someone interested in making sure which business we stay in? Surely you'll say I'm just being paranoid, engaged in fantasy. And I hope you're right. Oh, Kerri Dunn says hi, and don't think it can't happen here. It did.

Based on the above, I suggest the president require a shared and inclusive definition of harassment, discrimination and abuse-related conduct to which everyone is held accountable.

I suggest further that complaints, allegations and claims are reported as such rather than as facts. Such complaints should be handed to the police for careful investigation and appropriate criminal justice interventions.

I've stated on a campus discussion email list that these acts are acts of vandalism first and foremost. They can be prosecuted that way. Because they also invade private spaces, they are criminal trespass. But the university has labeled all these acts hate crimes, which Dick finds objectionable.

Referring to anonymous bathroom graffiti as a hate crime, rather than juvenile acts of vandalism, is overreacting, which makes a mockery of real acts of hate that might occur.

Another colleague of mine shared with me a letter sent to President Potter. It makes the point of what we are setting up when we promise so much more than we can actually deliver, in a free, pluralistic society:

... I think your administration does a disservice to our students and our community when it simplifies a complicated issue, and when it assumes that all students will have the same reaction to these incidents. I read a comment of yours that some students are now afraid to be at SCSU and are thinking of leaving the university. But where will they go? Which university in this country can promise a better environment, or guarantee that similar incidents will never happen there? Not one. And, while I understand and genuinely sympathize with those students [who express hurt and fear --kb], legally their reaction has to be "reasonable." The entity that decides whether a victim's fear is reasonable is the jury, but only after all of the evidence is presented. Unless we want to be judge, jury, and executioner, we should not jump to conclusions that may or may not be supported by the actual evidence.

I think it is important for our students to understand how the law works and how the first amendment works because, ultimately, these will be used to decide the fate of the perpetrator. For all of the outrage being expressed now, how will you and the university community react if the perpetrator's conduct is adjudicated to be legally protected speech? Will you condemn the first amendment in equally harsh terms, because it rendered a result with which our community must disagree? Will you backtrack and explain that the law was always a part of the (non-existent) discourse as these events unfolded on our campus? Will you tell our students that their disappointment in the court's finding is understandable, and that you, too, are disappointed? I would hate to see our students set up for a fall -- waiting for the system to come down hard on this person who has so grievously injured our community, only to find him/her exonerated?

President Potter announced two weeks ago that there will be a forum "that will invite broad perspectives on characterizing and dealing with hate crimes, as well as provide support and information about resources to help those in our community who are feeling threatened or intimidated." There has so far been no forum planned on free speech, but never has one been more needed. To both of my colleagues, bravo.

Labels: Freedom, higher education, SCSU

Posting will be light the rest of the week, as I am going to New Orleans for the ASSA meetings to interview (yet again) for a position in our department. I've posted some ideas in the past on this, and stole John Palmer's idea last year, and similarly-situated John Whitehead has some other tips for interviewees. This is the sixth year out of seven I've spent a January weekend in a hotel interviewing (and if you're interested, yes, we've hired each time ... we're that young.)

If you're interviewing with us, you're allowed to say you read this blog.

Labels: economics, SCSU

So another biennium begins in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, and the first semester ends without the faculty having finalized a contract with the system. Some faculty walk around with buttons that indicate their salary demands (about 15% increase over the two years). Word around the campus is that if we get even remotely that amount, the schools do not have enough money to pay those salaries and so there will have to be cutbacks.

The union -- the Inter-Faculty Organization -- delves into the details and discovers one reason why the money might not be there:

At the last MnSCU Board of Trustees’ meeting MnSCU officials revealed a little more detail than has been supplied in the past on how they plan to spend the $62.8 million increase in technology money this year. MnSCU is increasing expenditures on technology from $21,500,000 in FY2007 (last year) to $46,355,000 million this year—a 115% increase in one year. They are proposing an additional $4.7 million increase in system level technology expenditures next fiscal year. MnSCU currently has 140 system level technology positions, 20 of which are vacant. They are proposing to add an additional 55 new technology positions.

MnSCU received essentially block grants from the legislature of $666.8 million in FY2008 (this year) and $689.3 million in FY2009. The biennial increase in appropriations was 12.6%. The increase in appropriations this year to the MnSCU system as a whole was 10.6% The increase in appropriations sent out to the campuses by MnSCU was only 3.3%.

Faculty have complained that MnSCU is spending too much money on central office growth, particularly on system level technology, and not sending enough of the state appropriation out to the campuses, where education takes place. The amount of money MnSCU is spending on “Systemwide Set-Asides” is increasing from $58.9 million in FY2007 to $85.8 million in FY2008 (a 45.6% increase) and to $90.8 million in FY2009 (another 5.8% increase). At the last IFO Budget Committee meeting, Tom Fauchald, Budget Committee Chair, presented an analysis of the growth in state appropriations from MnSCU to the state universities as a percent of the university operating budgets. Here is the biennial growth by university:

Bemidji	2.50%
Metro	2.92%
Moorhead	2.18%
Mankato	2.71%
Southwest	1.93%
St. Cloud	2.62%
Winona	3.20%

The data is easily available by reading through the system's budget documents. While I have plenty of beefs with the union, they have exposed a very important problem in the system.

When this was discussed at the town hall in Waite Park, most of the suggestions focused on why do we have a system office, and what does it provide? Why would a system office need to suck up almost a sixth of the state's appropriation? Why do we have a huge St. Paul office with more employees than any of the colleges and universities in the system save two? Is it really more efficient and better for SCSU that it is a system board of trustees in St. Paul that hired President Potter to our campus last summer, rather than a St. Cloud board of trustees? If there was, wouldn't that board provide the resources he would need to pay the salaries he was negotiating? You certainly would not get this situation where the state appropriates 12% more money to the system, but only 3% reaches the place where the students are.

It's a strange world, this MnSCU. I got the impression that more scrutiny of this spending pattern might come from legislators. It's long overdue.

Labels: legislature, SCSU

James Lileks, a couple of hours ago on the story:

When I was at the U it was rare to find a bathroom stall that didn’t have a swastika, or some other piece of moron-spoor. The reaction then? Usually someone wrote a profane rejoinder with a Sharpie. Today:

“As campus officials and police look for those responsible, (university President) Potter said conversation might be the key to ending the crimes. In recent weeks, the school has increased security, created a team to evaluate each case, held training for faculty members to help them find ways to process the incidents in their classes, and reached out to the city's mayor in efforts to get conversation going and to talk about how to deal with hatred and bigotry.”

I suspect there’s one fellow behind this, loving every minute.

When I have tried to say this, or make any mention of the First Amendment -- it doesn't protect a vandal, but it might protect someone reading Mein Kampf in front of Atwood (oh, wait, that's not a public expression area) -- I have been pretty routinely shouted down. A message to the campus from the provost yesterday noted these "reprehensible and cowardly acts "threaten the safety and sense of security of many of our students. Several students are so upset that they are considering transferring to another university." I have to wonder what kind of education we provide here where a student asks mom and dad to let them transfer when they see a carved swastika (or, new this week, a drawing of a burning cross including the letters 'KKK') and not get out their best Roman Maroni voice and mutter "Fargin iceholes." Every escalation of response on the campus has led to new acts. As a very wise man said in response to that message yesterday, "at some point withholding the attention such petty thugs crave is the only way to starve their self-obsession. While we must take every such act seriously, we dare not become distracted by their acts of "terror", because that is exactly what such bigots seek."

And for those that can't here, free Sharpies to the first ten commenters.

Labels: SCSU

Students at Friends for Life, a group that advocates for pro-life positions, received a letter from another student group called Out Loud, a group "that takes a stand against homophobia and heterosexism." The letter invited them to participate in an event called the Real Real World, an event I find described from a 2004 newsletter of our Social Responsibility program as

...an interactive program that addresses and exposes oppression on an everyday level as well as a larger level. This is mostly portrayed through visual and auditory media, where students take a tour through the life of different populations who face oppression on a regular basis.

A newsletter from this spring for students to find volunteering opportunities on campus describes Real, Real World as

a campus event ... that showcases displays on anti-Semitism, heterosexism, sexism, body image, racism and empowerment.

FfL felt it should present a booth for an oppressed group: the unborn. Its leader, David Brix, then reports to me that he received a call from Out Loud's faculty advisor, who is the interim director of the campus' GLBT Services office. While never explicitly told that FfL could not participate, Brix says he was told that the group's proposed presentation "would probably not fit with the theme of the real real world as her group is about women's progress not about restricting what they can and can not do with their bodies. " (His quote, not the advisor's.) Brix concluded from the conversation that any further discussion would not result in FfL getting the make their presentation.

Perhaps the descriptions of the event that I have are not accurate. In this case, perhaps Out Loud would like to provide a more accurate description of its program. But even then we have a coordinated event created by something paid for by state dollars, to which a student group is discouraged from participation based on viewpoint. One can only imagine what might happen on a university campus if a group created a public presentation called "Real, Real Fetuses".

Labels: higher education, SCSU

In today's StarTribune, Katherine Kersten describes a case of campus "making an example" of a student who made a flip joke. A student at the MCTC campus newspaper jokes about missed deadlines by creating a noose out of his sweatshirt drawstring, hangs it with a note of mock warning, and then removes it before leaving the newspaper's office. Within days, he is fired.

At a meeting set up by college authorities, he apologized profusely to staffers. He called the noose joke "unprofessional" but explained that it was a misunderstanding.

"Too late," one student responded, said Keith. "The staffer told me, 'An example needs to be made. We need to raise awareness of issues like this on campus.'

"They didn't want an apology," Keith added. "They wanted me out of there so they could launch the aftermath."

Not the student's best moment; it's a tasteless joke. But one could hardly have said he was singly out black student reporters for the noose. That did not matter.

"We are angry," Lisa Dean, president of Association of Black Collegiates, a student group, told the Star Tribune for an article about the incident. "If we do not nip it in the bud, it will spread and a lot of students may not want to attend this college because of racism."

At the P.C. circus' surreal climax, Keith unknowingly walked into a protest rally where a crowd vented outrage at his bigotr. Meanwhile, administrators scrambled to use the incident as a "chance to educate our students."

Educate about what? You guessed it: "We want to educate around cultural understanding," Laura Fedock, interim associate vice president for academic and student affairs, told the Star Tribune. "We need to teach each other when something is offensive."

Kersten wonders if students learn anything else. But she then gets to the heart of the matter:

The thinly veiled secret is that an incident like this is a godsend to campus political posturers and must be milked for all it's worth.

Today, a favorite college pastime is fanning the flames of grievance. Victimhood is a tremendous source of moral power, and being outraged and oppressed is a sure bet to get your picture in the paper -- displaying a look of grave concern for all humanity.

On the St. Cloud State campus last week, some muttonhead scratched swastikas in our student union building. One was in the muticultural office, found last Tuesday. It's unlikely we'll ever figure out who did it. But this doesn't prevent one administrator of saying we will "come together as a community and develop a plan."

For what? If the perpetrator(s) are not on this campus, what good does it do? Because it gives the political posturers not only a photo op but power, power to impose a particular view of race. One member of the campus sent around a statement on the use of swastikas which concluded with this sentence:

While what might be thoughtless provocation should not be criminalized to an extent beyond room for education and socialization, hate crimes must be identified as such and condemned and persecuted.

The contradiction within that very sentence -- don't criminalize, but persecute -- is a shining example of the problem with the definition of hate crimes. (So too an exhortation at the bottom of his flyer advertising a public forum which says "Zero tolerance for undemocratic statements." In bold and underlined, just in case you might miss that.) At both these schools, statements of "zero tolerance" make it more difficult to have these conversations in the open.

Not that the posturers really care.

Labels: higher education, SCSU

This article from our campus newspaper is fairly persuasive that a room to allow Muslim students the opportunity to wash their feet before prayers is less controversial than it seems. The front page of the print edition has a very large picture of a student washing his feet, but the reporting inside is thorough in making the point that there is equal accommodation of all religions. The foot sink was installed in the student union -- not a state building, technically -- in 2004, though accommodations have been made since 2001.

"The purpose of our building is to serve student organizations, and as part of freedom of religion, students have the ability to create their own student organizations based upon religious tenants," [Ed Bouffard, Atwood Center director] said. "Our function is to serve the group, not to serve the religion. And if their group gathers around a particular context, that is their choice, and we serve those groups."

"One of the big issues has been unfair treatment of Christian groups relevant to Muslim groups," he said. "Sometimes people frame it as, 'well gee, you are catering to Muslim students, and Christians can't do that.' Well in the case of the foot sink, it is done for safety. They don't pray in that room, they wash their feet in that room, and that is a cultural difference. I think here we certainly serve both groups."

Bouffard said about 12 Christian groups use Atwood's facilities, and in 2006, Christian groups made 454 building reservations compared to 55 for Muslim groups.

A Christian organization also recently conducted a 24-hour prayer room, and Bouffard said Native American students have sometimes requested to burn sage to cleanse rooms. In those cases, fire alarms were temporarily turned off to allow the burning. Certain Pagan and Wiccan groups also meet in Atwood regularly.

It's a pretty compelling case Ed makes. One question, on equal accommodation, seems to be cared to by the numbers on number of Christian building reservations (those can be anything from a booth to hand out circulars to advertise to a prayer group.) The other, state funds, is met by the use of a student union paid for from activity fees. I'm a little uncomfortable with that, as students don't really have a choice on paying for it (short of not attending a public university.) But I don't know that this is a major objection.

Anyway, compliments to the reporter who wrote this piece, Chad Eldred. It was very informative.

Labels: higher education, SCSU

Dani Rodrik comments today:

"In the 2006-7 school year ... international students’ net contribution to the United States economy was nearly $14.5 billion," reports the New York Times, citing a just-released study by the Institute of International Education. The IIE report itself states: "International students contribute approximately $14.5 billion dollars to the U.S. economy, through their expenditure on tuition and living expenses." Apparently, two-thirds of this spending is financed by students' own families and their home governments.

As anyone with a modicum of economics training should understand, this number represents a net contribution to the U.S. economy only in the absurd limiting case in which the opportunity cost of resources used in providing U.S. education services to foreign students is ZERO. I bet my Dean at Harvard--which is ranked #9 among top hosts of foreign students--can vouch that he pays me real money.

I've heard people in Minnesota say that we spend too much on educating international students here at SCSU and not enough on education for Minnesotans. I've thought about this, "does it cost us more to educate an international student than a Minnesotan?" Most schools, ours included, make a good bit of money selling English language courses to international students who don't speak English well enough when they come to our university to succeed in classes. (These are separate programs, which may or may not include students counting in our international student body.) Those of course use real resources, and it's appropriate to ask what are the opportunity costs.

As to what international students pay, here's their fee schedule, and here's the tuition and fee schedule for the university. Notice the line in the former marked "Academic & Cultural Sharing
Scholarship". This money goes to every international student regardless of the cultural sharing they will do, whether we already have 200 students from that culture, etc. The size of that scholarship is exactly equal to the difference between the non-resident and Minnesota tuition rates.

If it costs more to educate an international student than a Minnesotan, that becomes a net subsidy. Even if it does not, if an international student crowds out a domestic student, one can argue that we are subsidizing. Now SCSU does use as its current marketing logo "What's Your World?" So one can argue as well that we are subsidizing international students so that Minnesota students experience global exposure. But we admit 1000 international students to a campus with headcount under 17,000. When do diminishing returns set in? Is this a cost-effective way to provide Minnesotans with a global education?

Labels: economics, higher education, Minnesota, SCSU